Sticks and Stones
by Becca Stareyes
Summary: Crossover with Atrocity Archive/Laundry series by Charles Stross. Years after Gaea, Hitomi is in an unlikely line of work when a bit of her past comes back to her. End of Escaflowne spoilers.


**Author's Note**: Done for the story_lottery challenge on LJ. Prompt was 'pick up sticks'. May turn into a longer story later.

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Four Flowers Noodles was not the best food in its neighborhood. However, the proprietors made some extra money by keeping a couple of private rooms that were secure enough for an informal meeting with a foreign visitor. Most of the time, this was just business dealings, but KaiSupa had used them before. Not for anything too classified, but just as a place to sound things out with contacts in a place that wasn't as threatening as the main offices.

Hitomi set her messenger bag down, and took out her cell phone, keying into the games menu. The tech guys back at KaiSupa had explained the programs, though it was all black magic to her. She knew the theory behind it, kind of. The application was supposed to make everything staticy and fuzzy, so eavesdropping was just a bit more difficult.

She set the phone on the single table, wondering how her life had taken this turn. She had thought that, aside from Gaia, she had been a pretty normal girl in high school. Of course, that was like saying that, aside from the giant scrape in the hull, the Titanic had been a perfectly seaworthy ship. Sighing, she took a seat, and gestured for her guest to join her.

Her guest was traveling under the identity of Doctor Sadhbh Fitzgerald, but she had asked Hitomi to call her 'Mo', after Hitomi had stumbled over her alias. Mo set the bags that she hadn't even had time to put in her hotel room against the side of the wall, and joined her at the table. "Your flight went well?" Hitomi asked, letting her schoolroom English come back with plesantries. Since they were on Japan's home soil, she could have asked that the meeting be conducted in Japanese, but Ishikawa-san had pretty much said that the British could either send an expert or an agent that spoke Japanese.

"As well as can be expected," Mo answered, in crisp English. "I do wish we could have put off this meeting until after I had a chance to lie down."

"You know how it is," Hitomi replied and Mo nodded, with a rueful smile.

The waiter brought them their noodles and Hitomi reached for the cup full of disposable wooden chopsticks and took a set out, removing the wrapper and spliting the halves apart. She noticed Mo doing the same without paying much attention, which surprised Hitomi. She wouldn't think that a British woman would know how to handle chopsticks, but Mo had picked them up like a native.

She ate for a moment, thinking about how to bring up their real reason to meet. This was her first solo assignment, and while Mo had given her all the right counter-signs at the airport, it was all still so very dramatic, and she was nervous she had screwed something up.

This wasn't what she was expecting to be doing after college at all. After her normal return to high school, she had been pleasantly surprised to find out that she had qualified for a full-tuition university scholarship from the KaiSupa Corporation. It was only in her senior year of university when two black-suited men had paid her family's house a visit, telling her she could either repay the scholarship _as soon as she graduated_, or enter the thrilling world of employment with secret government organizations.

It turned out her scholarship had come from a government organization that had an official name, but had been nicknamed the Kaijuu Spotter's Club long ago, and shortened to KaiSupa almost immediately afterward. Her job with them mostly seemed to be filing work and being a librarian for people who looked like the normal salarymen and women she saw on the subway on the way to work, except for asking questions about programs that summoned demons by making fractals and treaties with creatures living under the sea. At least now this assignment had clued her in to what exactly had drawn the people at KaiSupa to her.

She almost missed what Mo had been saying. "Hmm?"

"Tarou-san?" Hanako Tarou -- that was her alias during this mission. She hadn't given out her real name. It was so common-sounding that it almost screamed 'I am using a cover', but Mo hadn't seemed to mind.

"Oh, yes. You were asking about the books," Hitomi replied, setting her chopsticks down.

"Your people do know where they are?" Mo asked. "We had some very frustrated archivists back in Britain who are quite upset that this slipped out of the country before our people caught on."

Hitomi nodded. "Yes, we've tracked them down. A businessman bought them from a used book dealer. You'd have to ask Ishikawa-san about the exact trail. I don't think he wants it discussed widely."

"Right. We'd like that information, even if I have to carry it back to London by hand."

Hitomi nodded. She didn't even know how the spying parts of the organization worked, besides that it seemed to involve a lot of sallow-faced techs at computers. No femme fatales or men in sharp tuxedos here. She didn't even know who it was that spotted 'On the Principles of Limit Calculation by Algorithm and Varied Applications' and 'A Summary of Historical Conjecture on Atlantis', penned by Sir Isaac Newton and dated to 1726, plus or minus one year. Whoever it was had known enough that someone other than a historian or collector would care about those books. Probably he had read the reports on Gaea and Emperor Dornkirk that had been Hitomi's first assignment to write.

"Anyway, it should be a simple matter of having our people retrieve the books and send them back with you," Hitomi said, picking up her chopsticks again, but not starting to eat yet. Her noodles were growing colder, though. "It's not new information to us."

Mo nodded, retrieving her own chopsticks. "I wouldn't think it would be, though the business about Atlantis surprises me. I would think that it wouldn't be of interest to a Pacific nation."

"Ah, well," Hitomi said, taking a mouthful of noodles and chewing as she thought, " We've had some interesting experiences that made my bosses think it was a good idea to do our homework." Usually by making Hitomi track down records, since she was already cleared for it. Not that she minded reading the books -- most of them were really interesting, and years of not thinking much about all she had gone through on Gaea had dulled some of the nameless fear she had felt when she had come back from the war there. It was something she couldn't talk much about, except to her grandmother, who knew a bit of Gaea and a lot of living during a war. Now, living in Tokyo kept her from seeing her grandmother as often as she liked, and work -- mostly the looming presence of Ishikawa-san telling her dispassionately what happened to people who forgot about clearances -- put up a barrier she felt trapped by.

"A shame we're not that close, treaty-wise," Mo replied. "That kind of thing sounds like a good story."

"It's something that happens in our line of work," Hitomi replied. "It's not something you can talk about at home."

Mo nodded, picking through the bits of noodles with her chopsticks. "Oh, yes. At least in specific -- my husband and I both are in the same line of work, so we're used to general gripes. Doesn't mean it doesn't occasionally lead to some discomfort."

"Ah, so you're married?" Hitomi asked. "I wouldn't think you could mention something like that outside the country, in case it leads back to your real identity."

Mo shrugged. "It's somewhat common. My first set of roommates in the business were in a long-term relationship as well. To be honest, you'd probably get more use out of looking at all the redheaded women in Britain than trying to track me by my husband." She yawned. "I hope you don't mind if we finish up here, and so I can check into my hotel? I'm about to fall asleep in my noodles. "

"Oh, no problem. I should report into the office myself." Hitomi counted out the money for lunch, and made sure to tuck the receipt into her purse. Most of her money was going to living expenses nowadays, so she wanted to at least try to be reimbursed for this trip to pick up Mo.

She was about to pick up her cellphone and turn off the jamming program when Mo spoke again. "Tarou-san?"

"Yes?" Hitomi let her hand hover over the phone, not quite on the 'cancel' button.

"I don't suppose you know this, or could say, but... it's said that Isaac Newton was working on attempting to create a Philosopher's Stone in his old age."

Hitomi thought of her red pendent, given to her grandmother by Sir Allen's father, and a relic of Atlantis, and now back on Gaea, with Van. "I couldn't comment," she said, feeling a bit bad. She grabbed for her phone, turning it off. "Sorry about that."

"No, I understand." Mo replied. "That's how work is."

Hitomi nodded, a bit relieved. This was entirely the wrong line of work for her, but what could one do when the contents of one's head were heavily classified. She made a note to go out for a run after work, to help work off the case of nerves this affair was giving her.


End file.
